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President Bush has made it clear
that he will veto the $435 billion Pentagon appropriations bill because it
restricts his ability to abuse prisoners in the war on terror. The bill,
which forbids the “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” of prisoners in
US custody, was passed by an overwhelming 90 to 9 majority in the Senate. It
was first flagrant rejection of administration policy in nearly 5 years.
Bush’s veto puts the administration on the extreme end of the policy
spectrum and links the president to the widely reported incidents of human
rights abuses and torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and the other American
prison facilities. It is now impossible to deny that Bush not only supports
a policy of calculated mistreatment of prisoners, but was also directly
involved in establishing the current regime. This implicates Bush in
violations of treaty requirements under the Geneva Conventions and the 1996
Torture Treaty, as well as the 8th amendment’s provision against “cruel and
inhuman” punishment.
Bush’s veto is a clear sign that the administration is a willing participant
in war crimes and intends to defend that barbarous behavior before the
American people and the world. There’s no longer any reason to dispute the
reports from Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, the ACLU, or the many
eyewitness accounts from US servicemen or former inmates. The president’s
veto clearly establishes that Bush tacitly supports “cruel, inhuman, or
degrading treatment” as official policy.
This is a positive development for those who believe that Bush will have to
be physically removed from office via impeachment, military coup or
revolution. It shows how disconnected the current White House is from the
nearly 90% of Americans who do not believe that torture can be justified
“for any reason”. It also dispels the foolish notion that Bush communicates
with God or is acting on his behalf.
The American people now have a stark choice between good and evil; between
those who advocate the “systemic, blatant and sadistic” (Taguba Report)
treatment of prisoners or those who don’t. Anyone who continues to support
the current administration or who fails to support the efforts to have them
removed from office and held accountable for their crimes, is equally
complicit in their immoral, unethical and criminal conduct.
This week, former UN chief weapons inspector, Scott Ritter compared George
Bush and Tony Blair to Nazi war criminals saying that, “Both of these men
could be pulled up as war criminals for engaging in actions that we
condemned Germany in 1946 for doing.” Bush’s veto removes any doubt about
the veracity of Ritter’s comments.
Currently, there are over 25,000 prisoners in American facilities in Iraq
who have been exposed to some level of physical brutality. None of these men
have been charged with a crime, nor will they be. The Pentagon, acting as
the surrogate for the imperial presidency, simply conducts its arrests and
interrogations according to its own vicious standards. There are no rules
and no constraints; just the vile application of physical coercion.
In Guantanamo, more than 200 inmates are in the 2nd month of a hunger
strike. 22 of the prisoners have been hospitalized and are being force-fed
by their jailors. The demands of the prisoners are both simple and
reasonable; they want to have a fair hearing before an impartial judge so
they can know why they are being held. It is most basic of all human rights
and one that is guaranteed under international law.
Once again, the administration and the collaborative media have conspired to
conceal the horror of what is taking place in Guantanamo behind a wall of
government secrecy. If the president is as forthright as he pretends to be,
than there should be no problem opening up Guantanamo to independent media
so we can see the affects of the policies he so ardently defends.
Whether prisoners are being beaten, humiliated, starved to death or simply
held without charges the facts remain the same. The policy originated at the
highest levels of government and will only be strengthened by Bush’s veto.
The administration is claiming the absolute authority to operate beyond the
law and with complete impunity.
Torture is the widow that allows us to see beyond the public relations
smokescreen into the fetid cesspool of administration thinking. The Bush
regime is divorced from any sense of decency or moral compunction. Nothing
they say can be trusted. They have generated an ethos of cruelty and
vindictiveness that now pervades the myriad offices of government and the
defense establishment. The very principles upon which American life depends,
and which are laid out in the founding documents, are threatened by their
conduct.
Bush’s veto tells us that the administration will not operate within the law
or comply with the will of the American people. It shows us that the
government now functions beyond its popular mandate and without a shred of
moral legitimacy. Bush and his lieutenants are unworthy of high-office and
must be removed before it is too late.
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